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Kingscraft 35' Great Loop?

My wife and I, and our 3 dogs, are considering a long cruise starting in Minneapolis, MN. We may attempt the whole Great Loop, or we may just end up somewhere in FL. We've even discussed going all the way out to Key West.

The main challenge is finding a suitable boat in which to make this trip. The dogs play heavily into the decision... we have a nice sailboat (Nor'Sea 27) which would handle the trip just fine, but the dogs simply can't get in and out of the boat well enough to make it a possibility. Even looking at trawlers, a lot of them wouldn't be suitable. But when I start looking at houseboats (we currently live on a 48' Lazy-Days btw) I'm not confident about their ability to handle the conditions in the gulf.

BTW- I have limited experience in open water, and the experience I do have is sailing.

Anyhow, I'm hoping to hear from someone that does have experience with the Gulf and the Keys area with a houseboat. I have a chance to buy a 35' Kingscraft at a fair price, and I like a lot of aspects of the design. Can it handle this kind of trip though with a decent margin of safety? Obviously I'll pick my weather window as conservatively as I can, but as I understand it there's still at least 140 miles of unprotected Gulf cruising necessary... and that's a fair amount of time for unexpected weather to come up.

We may attempt the whole Great Loop, or we may just end up somewhere in FL. We've even discussed going all the way out to Key West. . . . .

Houseboats, as a rule, are not designed for the water you would be likely to experience in the Gulf, much less the coastal ocean. While it MIGHT be able to handle the ICW, it would make me nervous. The ship traffic in the ICW can leave huge wakes.

I don't have any houseboating experience on the ICW, but have done it with sailboats and my Mainship 36 which has somewhat of a relatively flat hull although not quite as flat as a houseboat. I don't really see much of a problem with the northern gulf coast (Redneck Riviera) or the western Gulf coast on the ICW as long as you follow the weather forecasts. Whatever you do, don't follow the forecasts from the National Weather Service on your marine VHF radio. As far as ships are concerned, they should not be a problem either. They will mostly be traveling N/S and you will be going E/W on the ICW.
I would have my reservations about heading south on the eastern Gulf Coast along Florida. Many have done it, but then again, some have crossed the Atlantic in a row boat and also a bath tub.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents worth, again, I have never done it in a houseboat so take it for what it's worth.

Note: The 36 KC was a little narrow in the front and tended to plow in heavy seas. The Twin, not so much because of the added weight aft. Suggest you consider a 44 TWICE as much room and better handling. Not that much more money. KC's don't have cuddies and 3 dogs could get claustrophobic.

Update on this. We left Minneapolis / St. Paul on Sept 15, 2014. We're currently in Panama City, FL. We've had quite a fun time... though sometimes the dogs are skeptical. ;-) This is on a 1973 35' Kingscraft that we repowered with an outboard. We're still planning on heading further, but have some changes to make to the boat before we do. The main thing is fixing the cavitation problem we're having when trying to open it up. (Cruising speed of 6 kts is just fine... but in theory the 225 hp outboard we have should plane this boat but instead we just cavitate as we get to higher rpms.)

Even though the boat is a work in progress, I'm really glad we left Minneapolis when we did... I just didn't have another brutal winter in me.